Southern States - Kerala-Thiruvananthapuram

Police on the trail of spirit-peddlers

By G. Anand

Thiruvananthapuram March 30. The death of a 32-year-old youth, Ajeem, and the hospitalisation of six persons on March 27 after they consumed, what the police suspect to be methylated spirit, have put the police on the scent of a racket in methylated spirit in the city.

Police suspect the spirit was procured on the sly from the Government Homoeo College here. An employee of the college has been arrested in this connection. According to police, the accused, Chandradas, had supplied 300 ml of methylated spirit to Ajeem and his friends for consumption.

Excise officials say that in the wake of the arrack ban and the hike in the excise duty on Indian Made Foriegn Liquor (IMFL), there is a sizeable demand among the poorer sections of society for methylated spirit.

``There is a segment which procures methylated spirit by bribing hospital and laboratory store-keepers. The spirit is then diluted several times over before consumption,'' said an official.

There was a belief among tipplers that methylated spirit could be made non-poisonous by diluting it and squeezing a lemon into it, he said.

Methylated spirit was kept stocked in large quantities in several private hospitals, medical stores and laboratories in the city without Government licence or authorisation, Excise sources said. The illegal diversion of this spirit for human consumption was reportedly rampant.

Abkari rules insist that for stocking methylated spirit, an RS-I licence is required from the Excise Department. For stocking up to10 litres of methylated spirit, an annual licence fee of Rs. 100 is charged. For stocking more than 10 litres, the annual fee was Rs. 2,000.

However, rectified spirit fit for human consumption is falsely labelled as methylated spirit and stocked in several medical stores and hospitals for illegal diversion, particularly in the rural areas of the district.

Officials said there was enough evidence to suggest that RS- I licences meant for stocking of methylated spirit were being misused for procuring and stocking rectified spirit by certain licence holders.

The modus operandi was to get an Excise clearance on the basis of RS-I licence to import denatured spirit from outside the State citing non-availability in the Government-owned distilleries in Kerala.

However, the imported spirit would be rectified spirit or extra-neutral alcohol fit for human consumption and not the methylated spirit meant for medical purposes. It was pointed out that the spirit thus imported was diverted for making fake IMFL products.

In the light of the spirit-related incident of March 27, officials stressed the need for the Excise and Police Departments to stringently monitor the stocking and movement of methylated spirit in hospitals, medical stores and laboratories in the city and district.

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